Tag: digital libraries

I figured, what with my blog name, it’d be a crying shame if I didn’t talk about metadata for this month’s blog post. You know, a girl has to live up to her name! Before we delve into metadata and the potential privacy concerns that go along with it, it should be defined. Simply put, metadata is “data about data.”[1] To expand on that, metadata is “the information we create, store, and share to describe things.”[2] Metadata is literally everywhere, and that is amazing.

I remember signing up for a photojournalism course during my undergraduate years. I have always loved photography, but that course further cemented my love for the subject. I was fascinated when I found out more about cameras, and how they worked, and absolutely enthralled when the professor explained (the very basics of) metadata to us. The camera captured everything, and when I uploaded an image to my laptop, I would be able to go back and see my shutter speed, the make and model of my camera, the date, and so much more. And to think that for years, I’d had no idea. It’s not just digital cameras, either. Smartphones capture the same data when taking a photograph or video, and can even capture your precise location. Scary to think about, but also incredibly fascinating. I’ve uploaded my photos to Google Photos, and I can go back to any given photo or video, and Google can tell me my latitude and longitude and the date and time I took the photo, as well as what model phone I was using, and so much more.

So uploading photos to Google Photos helps preserve metadata, but what about uploading photos to a social media site, such as Facebook or Instagram, and then downloading them again at a later date? What happens to the metadata in that case? As it turns out, metadata is lost and/or corrupted:

“Once the file had been uploaded to and then downloaded from social media, approximately 203 metadata elements were lost, included [sic] date, color, creation-tool information, camera data, change and software history. It can be argued that removing some of this metadata would help keep user information private, but certain metadata should be retained, such as change and software history. These metadata make it easier to differentiate fabricated images from authentic images and to know which modifications have been made to a file. For preservation purposes, the missing metadata is what may be needed to provide authenticity.”[3]

What exactly does that mean, providing authenticity? Shouldn’t you be able to simply look at the metadata of a photo and prove if it’s been manipulated or something? Does it matter, really, if some of the information is missing? Well, yes. It does. Photos get manipulated all the time, and passed along as if they were real, and completely unedited. Hart’s article talks about the photo of a soldier who “is protecting innocent civilians”[4] and how it has been edited to make it look as if he’s reacting with hostility to the civilians.

“Images like this circulate through media of all types, and although the exchangeable image file format (EXIF) metadata may not identify what has been done to the image, it would eliminate any doubt that the image has been modified. Unfortunately, these data are not made available. Making users aware of this vulnerability may improve detection of file manipulation at the time of ingest to better ensure only accurate and authentic material is being considered for preservation.”[5]

Metadata is vastly important, and helps us showcase what is real, and what has been tampered with. Leaving out metadata, or carefully making sure that metadata isn’t available ensures that the veracity of a digital object cannot be trusted. So sure, Google Photos and your smartphone working in tandem to capture every single detail of a photo may seem like a huge breach of privacy, but it also shows that the images are true, and unaltered.

In Week 7’s lecture, we touched upon project planning and project management, and I’d like to expand on that a bit now.

Why is project management important in digital libraries?

Within most digital libraries, the work is project-based. It is important to properly manage these projects because often your resources (time, money, employees) are limited and you want to get your digital library completed in a timely manner before those resources run out. It is also important that clear expectations are set for your team and everyone knows what their responsibilities are and how the project will work.

What project management methods are out there?

There are two basic types of project management: traditional (also referred to as waterfall) and agile.

Traditional project management requires a formal planning process. It looks at the breadth and scope of a project from the beginning and plans all workloads and deadlines through the to end. There is often little tolerance for change within this methodology. This style of project management takes a lot of time and planning in the beginning and attempts to predict outcomes, despite at times multiple variables. In many environments for many types of projects, this methodology works just fine.

Unlike traditional project management, agile project management only needs enough of a plan to get started (though deadlines are vital). Cervone has a wonderful set of articles (cited below) on using agile project management within digital libraries. They are short, quick reads and I highly recommend them. Agile was originally created for software development, though many digital libraries have adopted it to suit their project management needs.

In agile, there is a focus on milestones, and every milestone must be tied to a deliverable with a completion date attached to it (Cervone, 2012b). Given the newness of the methodology, many people comfortable with traditional project management may be resistant to try agile. Therefore, it is important that within the project plan communication is a priority, including how much communication people can expect, how communication will occur, a change management plan, and identification of the standards and norms for the team (Cervone, 2012c).

The main practice of agile is Scrum project management (yes, many terms and ideas of this methodology have been borrowed from rugby). Scrum’s main focus is on “sprints,” or spans of time (usually 2-4 weeks) where progress is made on a project. At the beginning of a project, a “backlog” of tasks to be completed is created (Dulock, 2015). Daily meetings, called Scrums, occur where each member tells the group 3 things:

What they accomplished since the last Scrum

What they will accomplish before the next Scrum

What obstacles hinder their progress

The Scrum Master’s job is to eliminate the obstacles for his or her team. Team members are in constant communication and constantly collaborate. The goal at the end of every sprint is to have a product (or a piece of the larger product) that is shippable.

However, agile has its downsides as well. Agile works best when the project is an employee’s entire job. This is rare in libraries, as everyone in a library has other responsibilities throughout the day. However, while agile was created for software development, libraries can still take aspects of the methodology to apply to their projects.

University of Colorado Boulder took on a digitization project using Scrum methods. They didn’t use the entire methodology; rather adopted principles that would best suit them and their team’s needs (Dulock, 2015). The resultant process allowed the library to have more projects going at once, faster publication of digital collections, and more objects digitized and surrogate records created than before (Dulock, 2015).

There is no consensus on which methodology is best for LIS institutions. When planning a digital libraries project, it’s important to be aware of various methodologies and to know the culture of your institution and your team to know which would work best for a given project. Sometimes it may be necessary to use some aspects from traditional and some aspects from agile to create a project plan that is optimal for your project. At the end of the day, if a project is completed on time, on (or under) budget, and the employees are satisfied with the process as well as the product, it doesn’t really matter what methodology was used.